The Target Came Second: mistaking luck for a plan - real estate business goals

There is a story about a prince who had become convinced he was the best archer in the world.

On his way home, the prince stopped in a small town and saw a barn covered in targets. Every target had an arrow directly in the center. Not close. Dead center. The prince asked the villagers and found out the archer was just a young boy. He demanded a demonstration, The boy picked up his bow, fired an arrow into an empty section of the barn and missed every target. Then he went inside, came back with a bucket of paint and drew a target around the arrow.

We know the boy is not a great archer. This concept is unfortunately more familiar than it should be - especially when it comes to real estate business goals.

Something goes well, and we begin building the explanation. We credit the new system or routine, or whatever activity we were hoping would work. Maybe it really did. But sometimes we are not studying the shot. We are painting a better story around where it landed. We do it because it protects us from having to admit that we didn't know what we were aiming at. It lets us turn luck into skill and coincidence into intention.

That story is comforting. It means we do not have to reconsider the activity, expose ourselves to something harder or acknowledge that the result may have come from somewhere else. Real estate gives plenty of room to do this because results rarely appear immediately after the thing that created them. A client may call today because of a conversation six months ago. A referral may come from a relationship that took years to build. Someone may see your name in several places before finally deciding to reach out.

By the time the lead appears, there are a dozen different things available to take credit for it. We usually choose the one that is easiest to see or the one we most want to believe is working. That can become a very convenient arrangement. If the activity we enjoy gets credit for the result, we can keep doing it. We do not have to ask whether it is actually producing anything. More importantly, we do not have to replace it with the activity that feels more uncomfortable.

The lead is still real. Nobody needs to return a commission because the path that produced it was confusing. The danger is not celebrating the arrow that landed well. Celebrate it.

The danger is studying the target you painted afterward and using it to decide where to aim next.

Once we convince ourselves that our aim was responsible for the result, we repeat the same activity with more confidence. If the result does not happen again, we blame the timing, the market or the fact that we need to give it a little longer. Anything except the possibility that the target was never there in the first place.

This does not require an investigation every time something good happens. It only requires deciding what you are aiming for before you release the arrow. Was there a target before you started? Did you know what the activity was supposed to produce? Would you still call it successful if this one person had not appeared? Can you repeat what happened, or are you building a plan around the most recent arrow in the barn?

The problem with painting the target later is not that it makes the first shot look better.

It's that it gives you no idea where to aim the second one.

FAQ: Mistaking Luck for a Plan - real estate business goals

Why do people explain results after they happen?

A clear explanation makes an uncertain result feel repeatable and under control. The problem begins when the explanation is chosen because it is comfortable rather than because the evidence supports it.

Why can real estate results be difficult to trace?

Real estate opportunities often develop over months or years and include several conversations, relationships and points of contact. The activity closest to the result may not be the activity that originally created it.

How can an agent avoid painting the target afterward?

Decide what an activity is expected to produce before starting it. Then evaluate it using that target instead of allowing one unexpected result to define what the plan was supposed to accomplish.